Cornell ahs 2 books in the New 52, Stormwatch and Demon Knights. Despite being a complete Authority fangirl, I liked Demon Knights the best. I mean.... it had dinosaurs! what's not to love? Everything is better with dinosaurs. Also I guess the characters and all that were cool too...

Seriously. While both issues faced a similar problem, quickly introducing a large cast of characters, Demon Knights succeeded where Stormwatch failed. It jumped around less, so things felt a bit less chaotic, and the characters had more readily apparent individual voices/personalities. I especially liked the triangle with Madam Xanadu Blood and Etrigan. Should be interesting in the future.

Also, the art here is MUCH better than in Stormwatch, which no doubt helps. Very nice stuff.

I wanted to check this title out (<3 Etrigan, his appearance in Kevin Smith's "Quiver" was just fantastic) but I can't muster the energy/money for a book filled with characters I don't know/care about yet. Etrigan being the exception.

I'm going to have to wait for Trades and more issues to appear, as well as some developed feed-back from various reviews of said TPB, before I really consider it.

But it is one of the few New 52 that actually caught my eye, besides Superman/Boy, Batman & Robin, and Manapul's Flash.

This was, hands down, my favorite book of week 2. Everywhere that Cornell's other book, Stormwatch, failed, this one shines.

No explanatory dialogue, all the characters have distinct personalities, everything's pretty clear, and it has DINOSAURS. I dunno if it's the best of the week, but it's my favorite so far. The art is great and the writing is well done and interesting. Highly recommended. DINOSAURS.

I had no attachment to any of these characters whatsoever (that can actually be said of most of the new 52 books), but Cornell made me care. And he did it in a book with a whole lot of action and a lot of fun.

The setting was laid out well, almost becoming a character in and of itself, being a great backdrop to the beginning of the story.

And the threat! OH! THE THREAT! It was beautifully established in, what?, a page?, that these were not people to be taken lightly and that they were so morally bankrupt that they don't just do evil, they do it very casually. "Oh, a threat to us, maybe? Meh. Kill everyone with dinosaurs."

Did I mention that it has dinosaurs? Because it totally does. And a TERRORBIRD! Woo!

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Zack: I'm pretty sure our soul is composed of a series of toy commercials that ran from 1984-1988. When we die Hasbro does with us what they please.

BTW. I am curious how much of Stormwatch's history is tied into this book. Cornell is writing both, and a panel in Stormwatch quite plainly showed Etrigan and some of the other characters as a previous incarnation of Stormwatch. What we are seeing here would appear to be the genesis of Stormwatch. I wonder where the switch from magic to science came into play for the group. The Enlightenment, maybe? Cornell has said there is a 'no magic' rule in place for Stormwatch (presumably explaining or at least contributing to the lack of a Doctor) Demon Knights is pure fantasy, Stormwatch is pure sci-fi, but there must have been a transition period. I'm picturing something steampunk-ish!

Stormwatch also has one effectively immortal character, Adam One. It will be interesting to see if he makes a guest appearance in Demon Knights, or maybe a previous Spirit of the Century. In The Authority, there were three medieval Jennies to choose from: Jenny Plague, Jenny Crusade, and Jenny Inquisition. Though, being the DCU, it may be a different Jenny entirely.

I don't see why The Shining Knight couldn't be the Spirit of the Era in Demon Knights. I realize that her name isn't Jenny...but maybe it was. And if you think about it, in the age of chivalry, the Spirit of the Era could be a knight.

The snag with Demon Knights being the genesis of Stormwatch is that most of the characters are immortal. Etrigan / Blood, Vandal Savage, Xanadu... I guess that it could just be that none of them stuck with it, though.

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Zack: I'm pretty sure our soul is composed of a series of toy commercials that ran from 1984-1988. When we die Hasbro does with us what they please.

It might work... her backstory is strange, but I suppose Cornell might just change it, being a reboot and all....

Keep in mind, this is taking place hundreds of years ago. Immortal or not, I'd imagine a few hundred years is an awfully long time to stick with one thing. It's also possible that there was some sort of internal conflict which led to a schism within the group, or something.

*edit - Cornell has posted the following tidbit of info on his blog:

yes, there would be a Century Babe, wouldn't there? (They're not all called Jenny, though.)

Which seems to be a pretty blatant admission that yes, a Spirit of the Century is in Demon Knights, but not necessarily named Jenny.... interesting...

The concept of Century babies kinda ironically may see a lot more use in the DCU than it ever did in Wildstorm. And it kinda defined the WS universe, so that's saying something. Wildstorm was all pretty much set in the 20th and 21st centuries, so we only saw 2 Spirits developed as full characters, Jenny Sparks, and Jenny Quantum. We saw a few more general Century Babies, Elijah Snow and Axel Brass from the 20th, and River Baldwin from the 21st. We got ONE issue of The Authority that showed some previous spirits of the century, and only Jenny Steam and Jenny Crusade had much more than a cameo. But with Demon Knights being set in the middle ages, All-Star Western in the 19th Century (Jenny Steam!) and Legion in, what is it, the 31st century? we could have multiple Spirit of the Century characters and Century Babies in use at the same time.

Read through it, and I gotta say, Etrigan is the selling point for this book. I really would've not been the slightest bit interested in this had it not been for him.

Still -- They do an impressive job of separating it from the rest of the DC timeline. I like the setting a lot. Also, the characters, without knowing anything about them, are more-or-less-instantly likable.
I can see the token big-guy, token-brat, token-smart mouth, and token-female-tougher-than-she-looks already arising from the characters out of just one issue, but I say "meh". It's a comic book.

It was a decent enough read. Not sure I'd take it in anything but trades though.